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In Defense of the Working Rich

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have in the Stack here, there's three, maybe four stories on the rich that I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get to today. I'll keep 'em aside, if not, for tomorrow, 'cause the rich, as you know, are under assault. And the point of these stories is how it ought to be just the opposite, that, you know, we have this liberal-created image of the rich as idle coupon clippers. They don't work, they inherit. They're unfeeling and they have no compassion and no understanding of what life is like for the poor or middle class, and they just keep taking money from 'em left and right.

And the fact of the matter is, and we've done this I can't tell you how many times over the course of 25 years. There used to be a bank, US Trust, may still be around. I don't know. Asset management for the wealthy kind of bank, and other institutions have surveyed the rich, and every one of these, there have been books about it, experts in it, every one of these surveys and in-depth studies of wealthy people has found that most of them work their tails off, that they're not idle, and that they do not live in mansions and flit around in the jet set, party after party after party, as is the impression given if you watch entertainment television.

In fact, the wealthy, the rich, the achieved, ought to be the role models for everybody, particularly in an economic recovery. They ought to be pointed to and highlighted and said, "Do this," to other people. If you want to get out of the mess you're in, be like this person, do what this person does. They're busting their rear end. They found something they loved and they're working hard. There are three different stories on this today. And it's important because you've got Obama out there, he's gonna have a meeting with the pope now -- I wonder why -- on this whole notion of inequality. Born of capitalism, income inequality and all rest of it.

The rich will not speak up for themselves. They think there's nothing to be gained. They won't defend themselves. They just stay away from it. But rich America happens to be working America, and most people think that rich America is idle, partying, jet setting America, or whatever. But it isn't. I'll give you one stat here just to tease this, but I'm not gonna go in depth right now because I won't be able to say everything that I want to say about it. But it says here that wealthy households contain on average more than four times as many full-time workers as do poor households, and surprisingly, inherited wealth constitutes a smaller share of their assets than it does for middle class and poor households.

In other words, the latest survey says the middle class and the poor, a greater percentage of their assets come from inheritance than from working rich Americans. The country would be far better off if more people actually lived the way the top 20% do, if they actually worked like the top 20%. Instead, the top 20%, top 10%, top 1%, they are maligned, criticized, ridiculed, impugned, and instead they ought to be held out and up as the role models. But then, of course, if you do that, you undermine the entire message of the Democrat Party. So we can't do that. The wealthy or the successful can never be seen in an admirable, positive light, not and have a functioning, winning Democrat Party. Because the fact of the matter is, the idle rich are not idle. Rich America is working America.